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Hi all,

Hope everyone's having a good week! It's slightly warmer here, which is nice. But still cold, looking forward to spring.

Book Club:

I put up a finished reading thread for The Thursday Murder club over in the book club folder! I found the official Penguin reading guide so I put some of the questions in there to help the discussion.

This week I finished:

Nettle & Bone- I really ended up loving this. I guess the root of the fairy tale was inspired by the princess and the pea, but it was a really deep inspiration. I didn't really pick it up until the authors note. but it still read like a dark twisty fairy tale, and that's right up my alley.

The Thursday Murder Club - Finished this up, managed to get it much quicker than expected. I like when that happens, so people aren't waiting on me to get the book thread going :) I liked it ok, i think it still comes down to I'm not really a mystery person.

The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue - Finally finished the audio re-read. I still love the book, i just go in phases with audio books. Sometimes I devour them, other times I just can't focus. I've been more in a "catching up on shows i never got around to watching" mode lately.

Currently reading:

The Atlas Six - I'm not really doing reading challenges this year, but i'm still in the popsugar goodreads/facebook group/discord, and this came up in basically ever Booktok recommendation list being posted. I'd never heard of it before, but it sounded right up my alley. I'm already almost 200 pages in, and i just started yesterday, haha. Enjoying quite a bit.

Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe doing another audio re-read, the second book came out and i read this one long enough ago there's no way I'd follow.

QOTW:

I'll borrow from popsugar again: are you a fan of short stories, or only longer formats?

I admit i generally prefer at least novella length. I always feel like short stories I never really have quite enough time to settle into a story. There's some exceptions, but on the whole I prefer longer. I also find I'm not a fan of short story collections. Usually feels like I only end up liking a handful, the rest just feel like filler. Even when it's all an author I like, I rarely end up liking ALL the stories. I do sometimes like the short stories that sort of fill in between longer books in a series, especially if they deal with side characters that dont' get as much time in the story. My only real frustration with those, is sometimes they're hard to fine. I'm not paying basically full price for a short story, so i have to hope either they're tucked at the back of an edition I can find, or they get compiled into a collection. But then I'm not reading them in the "right order".

Happy Thursday! I was up late watching figure skating last night, so I'm kind of tired today, but it was worth it. I follow skating all year long, not just at the Olympics, but the Olympics are a little like the Super Bowl of skating in a way.

Finished:
The Duke Who Didn't - 4 stars. Read for the Popsugar prompt, a romance by BIPOC author. I loved the heroine and the hero.

With the Fire on High - 4 stars. Read for the Popsugar prompt, a book with a recipe. I read and loved The Poet X by this author last year. I didn't like this one as much, but it was still very enjoyable and engrossing. I read this in about a day. I was really rooting for the main character.

Manga - How Do We Relationship?, Vol. 3 and How Do We Relationship?, Vol. 4

Currently reading:
Hollywood Heroine - for the book whose title begins with the last letter of your previous read (With the Fire on High). I've been a fan of this series for awhile, and I want to get caught up before the last book comes out later this year.

QOTW:
I do read short stories, but mainly when they're either from an established series, or by authors I am a fan of. I'll occasionally read some of the TOR.com shorts or listen to audio short stories on Realm (formerly Serial Box) to get a taste of a new-to-me author, too.

A number of authors like to release shorts as part of existing series, such as Seanan McGuire, Jim Butcher, and Martha Wells. Seanan McGuire releases new stories as part of her Patreon, although I'm saving most of those for when I get caught up on all her longer-running series. (Which is honestly probably going to be a year-long project for me, at least! LOL)

We got Peacock so we can watch weird sports at non-weird times, but that only works if you're OK with spoilers (or good at spoiler avoidance).

Tomorrow's Bread - This is my library's adult selection for the community read, which is actually in March, but the book was available so I figured I'd go for it now and give it back in case demand increases. It's about a Black neighborhood in our city that was "redeveloped" (destroyed) in the 60s. There wasn't much of a story, more of a meandering character study, but I was OK with that. I'm not sure I would have enjoyed it as much without the local interest (and when I say local, I mean it is a place I regularly walk to from my home). It was written by a white woman, but she clearly did a lot of research and was in communication with Black community members... I'll try to watch at least one of the events next month and see what other people think.

Pushout: The Criminalization of Black Girls in Schools - I think Sheri read this some time ago and I stuck it on my list, just now got around to it. It was interesting and informative but also I don't really feel positioned to take any action. Maybe I should try to pay more attention to local school board stuff.

QOTW:
Sure, I like short stories! I have certainly read some that would have been better served by being longer, but I have also read novels that would have been better as short stories. I also agree that collections will have better and worse stories, but I find longer works to be variable in quality as well, and with a bad short story at least it's over quickly and I don't have to slog through a novel in hopes that it gets better, or because I need to know how it ends. There are some good classics as well: Poe of course was a short story specialist, and the Sherlock Holmes canon is mostly short stories.

That is true, I do like poe stories. Maybe it’s really collections I don’t like because I feel compelled to read them like novels and they just run together and are all over the place

Not much progress to report - last week I'd just started The Grace of Kings, and I'm still working on it. Really enjoying it, but it's been a crazy week and I haven't had much energy to read. Just another week and a half until school vacation week and hoping to be able to catch up on my reading. We are going to be heading to Arizona - first time on an airplane in 2.5 years!

QOTW: I do generally like short stories, but I'm picky about them. I've read some that I loved, and others where I felt like I didn't even know what was going on. I once downloaded a giant collection of 5 years worth of short stories from tor.com and reviewed each story individually as I read them in bits and pieces over a year or so (you can see all of my reviews here if you're curious). Some stories I loved so much that I looked up the author's novel length work...and then was disappointed. On the other hand I've looked up short stories by novelists I like and been disappointed by those. Some authors are better at one than the other, I guess. That said, I'm really loving the Ken Liu book I mentioned above, and I was absolutely blown away by his anthology The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories.

Although I commented a couple times on last week's check in, I didn't actually give my own update.

In the last two weeks I finished The Man Who Died Twice, book two of the Thursday Murder Club. I will also comment on book club thread. I read this as an audiobook.

The next audiobook I started is Matrix. I literally just started listening. I think I'm in the first chapter still. So I have no opinion on it yet.

I am almost done with The Woman They Could Not Silence: One Woman, Her Incredible Fight for Freedom, and the Men Who Tried to Make Her Disappear. This is by Kate Moore, the same author as Radium Girls. This is for my neighborhood book club. This has been a book with a lot of feelings for me, most of them frustrated at how she's treated. I think this would make a great book club selection here too. I had never heard of Elizabeth Packard but what a strong woman with so much stacked against her. I am most of the way through it.

I'm also reading Rogue Protocol. Book 3 of the Murderbot Diaries. I've been enjoying these novellas. I also have book 4 checked out from the library so I can move right along.

QOTW: I don't tend to read short stories although last year I read a couple collections of essays. When I was a young adult I was a big fan of Isaac Asimov's short stories like his 2-minute mysteries and his other shorter stories (like The Seven Deadly Sins and The Seven Cardinal Virtues). I haven't read books like that in a long time though.

Two finishes for me. First was trying a new mystery set in the 1920s Come Hell or Highball. I liked it but probably won't continue series. Author was aiming for funny and mostly hit, but sometimes the main character did stupid things. Most of my favorite authors are amazing at infusing comedy into mystery, fantasy, and scifi (Elizabeth Peters, Gail Carriger, John Scalzi, Andy Weir) so I guess I have high standards.

My other finish was the 34th! Sharon McCone mystery Ice and Stone that I have been reading as they came out since about the 5th one. Series continues to be good and adapt to the times. I haven't heard that the series is officially ending, but it seemed like Marcia Muller finished this book so it could end the series if she doesn't do another one (she's 77). So may have been a farewell to a favorite character.

QOTW: I tend not to enjoy short stories as much as novels. But I am a fan of short stories that fill in back stories of long running favorite series characters, so I will usually read a whole collection if it includes characaters I know in one of the stories. I have also discovered that I like novellas, which I think would have just been published as regular books 30 years ago. I have learned that I like my epic fantasy not so epic in length, so I appreciate novellas that can pack a whole great story in something I can read through in a few hours. Favorites are the Scalzi Dispatcher books, Murderbot, and Binti.

since last check-in, i finished Crowned and Moldering by Kate Carlisle, and now I'm reading The King of Koraha.

QotW: doesn't matter - short or long. but i have learned i like my shorter stories to have a bit of a twist to them, kinda like Lovecraft (i know, i know, he's a problem.) but a fun twist. ever read Lovecraft's Cool Air?

Three finishes since my last check-in:

The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making, a lovely taken on the young-girl-in-a-strange-land trope. Well written. More books await in the series, if I can get my library to renew their expired licenses. Used for the Book Nerds Chapters with titles prompt.

Honeymoon Palsy, a collection of poems that I picked up following a complimentary tweet to the author by Neil Gaiman. I seem to be on an accidental "well, Neil Gaiman spoke highly of it" trend, as his blurb is on the cover of the book above as well! Mind you, he hasn't steered me wrong yet. Used for the Poetry prompt.

The Girl from the Other Side: Siúil, A Rún, Vol. 2, a beautiful, dark manga. Looking forward to the next volume. Used for the Character with a distinctive feature prompt.

6/100

QOTW: I'm with Trystan - shorter stories need a bigger twist. I enjoy varying lengths just as much as topics and genres.